Project Summary As life expectancy increases, questions arise about the quality of the additional years of life. Data consistently shows a Hispanic mortality advantage, especially among older adults. However, despite comparatively longer life expectancy, Hispanic elders are also at high risk of disease and disability. Therefore, the first goal of the proposed research is to analyze two NIH-funded datasets to identify changes in healthy life expectancy among very old Mexican-Americans as compared to otherwise similar non- Hispanic whites. Increases in proportion of life spent without disability would be evidence of compression of morbidity, whereas decreases in proportion of life spent without disability would be evidence of expansion of morbidity. Studies show that morbidity and disability trajectories (and hence healthy life expectancy) differs significantly across sub-populations (e.g. immigrants) and are also influenced by the neighborhood context. Therefore, the second aim of this study is to do sub-group analyses. This includes analyses by specific diseases, by demographic and SES groups, and by neighborhood variables. These goals will be accomplished using data on Mexican American elders from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (H-EPESE). Non-Hispanic white elders will be sampled from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) as the comparison group. Sullivan method will be used to calculate the life expectancy of each cross-sectional cohort, and multi-level modeling will be used to determine the relative influence of individual and neighborhood level characteristics. Results from the data would allow for measurement of population health over time for a growing and vulnerable population of elders. At the same time, results would allow for targeted interventions at both individual as well as neighborhood level variables. Understanding trends in healthy life expectancy is particularly important in a country with an already overburdened health services system5 since interventions that are targeted at particularly vulnerable groups may be more effective than those aimed at the general population34.